


thinking of you

by karasunovolleygays



Series: Valentine's Kisses 2020 [39]
Category: Haikyuu!!, ダイヤのA | Daiya no A | Ace of Diamond
Genre: M/M, parting is such sweet sorrow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22732636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karasunovolleygays/pseuds/karasunovolleygays
Summary: It was never going to last forever, but even if they're apart physically, some things will follow them both forever.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Furuya Satoru
Series: Valentine's Kisses 2020 [39]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589239
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	thinking of you

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for my 2020 Valentine's Kisses: 41. Kisses shared under an umbrella.

It’s been over two years since he had encountered Keiji at the aquarium, but Satoru feels like they’ve known each other forever. A simple guy with simple needs, Keiji always knows what Satoru is thinking, what he needs. Satoru doesn’t know any of that about Keiji in that capacity, but he sees when Keiji is tired or sad or bored or hungry and does the best thing he can think of to rectify it. 

In short, Satoru provides Keiji with the occasional lifted mood, and Keiji provides him with clarity in return.

Things aren’t the same anymore, though, they can’t be. Not when Satoru is nearing the end of his third year and an imminent return to Hokkaido, where college student Keiji will certainly not have time to visit. And with the professional baseball draft looming, Satoru doesn’t even know how long he’ll be back in Hokkaido. In a few months, he might end up in Honshu or Fujioka or some other prefecture far away from Tokyo.

For a moment, a single selfish second, Satoru wishes he could hide from it all.

Keiji finds him like this, waiting at their usual diner with his head wrapped around thoughts too weighty for it to hold. “You look distracted,” Keiji says, taking the chair opposite Satoru. “If you want to talk about it, you know where to find it.”

Satoru considers the offer. He does want to talk about it, even if he can’t string together the proper words to begin the conversation. Finally, he blurts, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Oh?” Keiji eyes him, and like he does every time he’s the object of Keiji’s focus, Satoru feels stripped naked on the spot. Understanding dawns, and Keiji sighs. “You’re worried about the draft. Don’t be. There’s nothing you can do to change the potential results, so there’s no reason to wind yourself up about them. Whatever happens, it happens.”

How Keiji takes his cloudiest thoughts and articulates them, Satoru doesn’t know, but at the moment, he’s happy for Keiji’s gift with words. He admits, “If I go somewhere far away, I might never see you again.”

Chuckling, Keiji shoots Satoru a smirk over the top of his menu. “As if you can get rid of me that easily. This isn’t America. Japan is not a large country. At any given time, if one of us wants to go see the other, it’s two hours or less by plane or six hours or less by bullet train.”

Satoru stares at the untouched menu in front of him and bites his lip in thought. Keiji isn’t wrong. There aren’t any yawning distances from the northernmost territories to the ball club cities the farthest south.

Perhaps it isn’t the distance he finds daunting, but rather his absence reminding Keiji of how different the two of them really are. That Keiji will do what everyone else outside of Seidou winds up doing: leaving him behind.

Satoru almost jumps out of his seat when Keiji flicks the tip of his nose. “Oi, stop worrying about things. Anything worth doing is worth figuring out.”

Their meal presses on without the subject coming up again, but Satoru finds it difficult to think of anything else. 

  
  


The day comes when Satoru walks out of Seidou for the last time, his belongings already sent home to his parents. It’s raining, of course, and it fits Satoru’s mood to the letter.

He’s leaving the one place that has always felt like home, and Keiji will be half a country away.

His classmates brush his preoccupation off as his usual sullen demeanor, and when Satoru leaves the campus, he finds himself at the bus stop but with nowhere else to go but away.

A familiar voice calls out from the other side of the platform. “Hey, stranger.” Keiji waves from under a black umbrella, his hair flying every which way from the humidity.

Satoru has never been so glad to see him.

Keiji’s umbrella envelopes Satoru’s soggy form, his black and white windbreaker pressed up against Satoru’s soggy gakuran and their noses almost close enough to touch. “I hope you didn’t plan on running away without saying goodbye.”

He had, of course, but Satoru could slap his past self who had thought it would be a preferable alternative to seeing the way his breath kicks up a little flare of fog on Keiji’s glasses. 

“Heading to the airport?” Satoru nods, and Keiji reaches out to lace their fingers together. “I’ll come with you, if you don’t mind.”

A smile creeps up at the corners of Satoru’s mouth. “I’d like that.”

They two of them stay huddled under Keiji’s umbrella hand in hand until the bus heading for Haneda Airport arrives. There are plenty of seats open, but they sit shoulder to shoulder in the back. Keiji props his cheek on Satoru’s shoulder, and Satoru squeezes his hand in return.

They don’t talk; they don’t have to.

Satoru fails at picking up social cues on the best of days, but he understands what Keiji is telling him now. On opposite ends of the country, the casual intimacy they have now can’t realistically continue. They both know that. But what Keiji is offering is to stay in contact, to stay together in another capacity. Not as an item, not as ‘just friends’. If there’s a word for it, Satoru doesn’t know it, but it’s theirs.

They arrive at the airport far too soon, and the two of them stand outside the terminal hand in hand under the umbrella. “Message me when you land, okay?” Their foreheads pressing together, Keiji murmurs, “And I want pictures of everything.”

“I’m not good at taking pictures, but I’ll try,” Satoru mutters, his eyes drifting down to Keiji’s lips. For the last time, he presses their mouths together, paying no heed to the hordes of people streaming around them. A few of the onlookers ogle them when Satoru pops the second button off of his uniform and presses it into a surprised Keiji’s hand.

With a deep breath, Satoru backs away from the shelter of Keiji’s umbrella with a tight little wave. He doesn’t smile. The mere thought of it makes him queasy, let alone how it would make him look. So instead, he fades into the obscurity of the crowd and arrives at his gate an hour early.

The only thing that keeps him from flying apart at the seams is the volume of  _ Kimi Ni Todoke _ Eijun had given him as a parting memento. It manages to make the hour and a half flight to Hokkaido drag on a little bit less.

Soon, though, he’s in the midst of the familiar hubbub of the Chitose Airport, and the backpack hanging from his shoulders feels just a little heavier.

A promise is a promise, though, so he scouts out the exit and makes the short walk to the aquarium near the airport. If anything is going to bring him some much-needed distraction, it’s this place. A few laps around the displays eases his hands balled into fists at his sides. Now, he’s ready.

Satoru flags down a staff member. “Excuse me, can you take my picture with the tank?”

The staffer, a smiling middle-aged lady, grins. Her eyes stray to his missing button, and she sighs. “Of course! Is the one who got that button getting the picture?” Satoru nods. “Then let’s make it extra special.”

Before Satoru can ask her what that means, she herds him over by the large center tank. “Now look up at the top of the water, and think about something that makes you happy.”

_ Something that makes me happy. _ That isn’t difficult at all. His mind immediately bolts to the first time he had properly met Keiji — one of his Sundays volunteering at the aquarium near Seidou. They had known each other in passing, but that’s the day they had truly grown into one another. It was also the date of their first kiss.

The faux shutter sound on his camera clicks a few times, and Satoru looks over in question. “Was that okay?”

She beckons him over. “Come see.”

Satoru’s heart lurches at the sight of the snapshot. His frame is illuminated by the soft blue of the light shining through water, his hand idly playing with the spot where his button is missing, and the closest thing his face does to smiling lingers, as well. “Oh. Yeah. Uh, thanks.”

His step is a little lighter as he bids the attendant and the aquarium farewell, and on the bus ride back home, he sends Keiji one of the pictures, tagged only with  _ thinking of you. _


End file.
